1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to data storage and management and more particularly to a method and system for shredding data within a data storage subsystem.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, enterprises have become more dependent on the ability to store, organize, manage and distribute data. Accordingly, “information lifecycle management,” the process of managing business data from conception until disposal in a manner that optimizes storage, access, and cost characteristics has become increasingly important. In particular, the significance of how data is “deleted” or disposed of has increased as confidential data has begun to play a more vital role in business transactions and stricter regulations are imposed on maintaining customer privacy.
FIG. 1 illustrates a high level block diagram of a data storage network including a conventional data storage subsystem in which stored data may be designated for destruction or “shredding.” Data storage network 100 of FIG. 1 includes a host 102 communicatively coupled to a data storage subsystem 104. Data storage subsystem 104 of the illustrated embodiment includes storage 106 coupled with a storage management processing module 108 as shown. Storage 106 of the illustrated data storage subsystem 104 includes at least one storage element 112 (e.g., a logical volume) capable of storing data within one or more storage objects (e.g., storage objects 114, 116 and 118) such as a file. Within data storage network 100 of FIG. 1, data is stored within storage elements (e.g., storage element 112A) utilizing storage management processing module 108. In the illustrated embodiment, the manner in which data is stored is monitored utilizing metadata 110 maintained or used by storage management processing module 108.
Storage element 112 of data storage subsystem 104 includes two active data objects (storage objects 114 and 116) and one inactive or “latent” storage object (storage object 118). Active and inactive storage objects such as storage objects 116 and 118 may be associated with one another. For example, storage object 118 may be a duplicate of storage object 116. In illustrated data storage network 100, inactive/latent data such as that stored within storage object 118 may or may not be indexed utilizing metadata 110. Consequently, storage management processing module 108 may be the only element within data storage network 100 capable of tracking the location of such inactive data. When storage object 116 (and consequently storage object 118) includes data to be destroyed or “shredded” storage management processing module 108 identifies the associated inactive storage objects utilizing metadata 110 and subsequently renders data associated with the appropriate storage objects permanently unreadable. Several shortcomings are therefore associated with such a data shredding process.
As storage management processing module 108 is responsible for storage element management including the processing of storage element creation, deletion and/or access (e.g., read/write) requests in addition to the permanent destruction of data via shredding, this module may become overloaded and a system bottleneck. Consequently, expired data may be retained for longer than necessary or desired and/or storage read and write operations may be unnecessarily delayed. Moreover, the described shredding technique necessitates the tracking of storage objects (utilizing metadata 110) to be shredded which may be otherwise ignored.